TW: abortion, mention of rape
On the 22nd of October, the Polish Constitutional Tribunal ruled that existing legislation allowing abortions due to foetal abnormalities was unconstitutional, leading to some of the most draconian restrictions across Europe. The only remaining legal grounds for abortion would be rape, incest, and medical risk to a mother’s life, making up some 2% of abortions in Poland. It was pushed by the ruling right-wing party, PiS (Law and Order), without public discussion.
The ruling was condemned by international human rights organizations, the Council of Europe commissioner for human rights, and by opposition MPs, who staged a protest wielding “This is war” placards in parliament.
Almost immediately, demonstrations began in more than 400 cities and towns, known collectively as the ‘women’s strike’, characterized by a red lightning bolt. Not just young liberally-minded women joined; many football fans, bus drivers, and citizens of PiS constituencies also participated in the demonstrations. A notable protest interrupted a church service with women dressed as Margaret Atwood’s dystopian surrogate handmaids. Warsaw independent media, Gazeta Wyborcza, found that 59% of their polled citizens disagree with the changes – on the 30th of October, Warsaw became the site of the largest protest since PiS came to power in 2015, and since the end of the socialist regime in 1989, attracting an estimated 100 000 people.
In a statement, Jarosław Kaczyński, Poland’s de-facto leader and head of PiS, claimed protesters were on a mission to “destroy” the country and called for the protection of the Catholic Church, conveniently disregarding the fact that demonstrations were also concentrated in front of PiS MP offices and his own home. The party failed to condemn counter-protests joined by far-right allies who violently clashed with peaceful demonstrators over the week; some even believed Kaczyński’s statement motivated them further.
The last time PiS proposed plans to restrict abortion in 2016, public outcry managed to table the discussion. Before the historic protest, President Andrzej Duda proposed for abortion to be allowed in the case of terminal foetal defects, but in other cases, like Down’s syndrome, to be outlawed. This is a shift from the ruling, but it satisfies neither women’s rights groups nor radical right-wing government officials. On Tuesday, the government indefinitely delayed the publishing of the court ruling and therefore transfer into legislation, in response to the protests, which gave hope to many. Yet the delay itself was deemed unconstitutional by legal experts; it is being held in limbo, easily reversible at any moment by a government with a questionable relationship to the constitution.
Four years and countless manipulations of state institutions later, do protesters stand a real chance of winning this round?
The ruling is part of the polarization of the nation by PiS, whose agenda centres around the Catholic Church and the protection of “Polish values”, pushing a populist cocktail of anti-EU, anti-immigration, anti-LGBTQ+, and anti-abortion rhetoric. Marta Kotswas, a scholar of Polish populism at UCL noted “an alignment between the political authorities, the church and militant right-wing groups”. The suggested near-total ban on abortion cast women as what Kotswas calls “bargaining chip[s]”, in an authoritarian move unfit for a nation calling itself a European democracy.
PiS has been undermining the values and authority of the EU ever since the marginal and shocking victory of President Duda in 2015. Since then, the party has faced criticism for packing the Constitutional Tribunal with partisans and most notably directly appointing its president, Julia Przyłębska, star of the recent ruling, while side-stepping the constitutionally outlined election process. The Supreme Court has also suffered a loss of independence over Duda’s last term. After overtaking the judiciary, PiS repressed independent media by fining outlets covering anti-government protests, planning to tighten restrictions and push out foreign-owned media, and by hijacking the national news outlet as a propaganda mouthpiece. These processes have not gone unnoticed – in the notorious press freedom index created by Reporters without Borders (RSF), Poland ranks 62nd in the world in 2020, down from 18th in 2015 when PiS first came to power.
This summer, Poland held presidential elections where the liberal, pro-Europe, centre-right mayor of Warsaw, Rafał Trzaskowski, narrowly missed a victory. Incumbent president Duda was re-elected with a hair-splitting 51% majority – one that top political scientists and commentators were unable to predict. Polarization is mounting in Poland and the governing party appears to be doing everything in their power to exacerbate it. The ruling on abortion is only the tip of the iceberg for a party whose elected representative claimed LGBT “ideology” was worse than communism and who failed to denounce a far-right white supremacist march in 2017 – the interior minister called the manifestation of this phenomenon “a beautiful sight”.
Having severed a separation of powers, and on the path to further restriction of independent media, Poland is at odds with the EU which hailed those two pillars as key conditions for membership. This also signals a final departure from the image of a promising, young, post-Soviet liberal democracy.
In October, Kaczyński announced that Poland would veto the EU’s coronavirus recovery package if Brussels made it conditional upon improvements over the rule of law, showing no sign of backing down on radical reforms. He compared the actions of the EU to those of the Soviet Union – an ironic comparison coming from a government whose agenda has recently jeopardized inalienable personal rights and especially considering that Poland is famed for being the first to peacefully remove authoritarian Soviet socialism.
The Eurobarometer found that of those surveyed in Poland in 2019, 54% tended to trust the EU as an institution, while only 35% tended to trust the Polish parliament and government. But the EU’s hands are tied. Any attempt to strip Poland’s vote or invoke sanctions will not pass without unanimity, which is guaranteed to be blocked by Hungary, led by authoritarian PiS ally, Viktor Orban. The EU’s authority is undercut by populist governments pushing radical agendas and for the time being, its strongest (if only?) weapon is condemnation. But for politicians whose campaigns fuel off hate speech and the smearing of opposition, this appears to be no issue.
The declining rule of law, crippling judiciary independence, and the gradual erosion of independent media freedom are indicative of a wider problem undermining democracy in Poland and in turn, the EU. 2020 is pivotal for the next five years and maybe for the upcoming decades if PiS continues its power-grab with the same unimpeded velocity. Popular protests may have scared the ruling party, but is that all they are able to do?
